Refuse to be a Zombie!

In the words of a very good friend of mine "People today are Zombies"...

This evening a friend of mine and I were discussing the topic of "Sappiness."  I explained that years ago I was a very sappy person, often telling people how I felt about them in a very straight-forward manner.  In the past few years, since my heart was last broken, I have found sappiness as a turn-off.  Any time a man would express his feelings for me in a sappy way, I would suddenly become distant from him.  I think this was mainly because I felt that these men were being insincere.  Does that show a lack of self-esteem?  Have I just been putting up a wall as to not get hurt again?  Or is it merely that it has been three years since I have felt something true toward a man?  If I had felt the same way, would I still have been turned off?

Recently, I put myself out there again.  I resorted to my method of complete honestly, only to feel afterword that I had done something wrong.  I remember apologzing to a kid I liked in highschool once for giving him a letter telling him how much I liked him.  His response was "Why are you apologizing?  You shouldn't apologize for that."  And he was right.

We live in this world where if a guy that we like sends us flowers we say "Oh, he's so sweet!"  But if a guy we don't like sends us flowers we label him a stalker.  I know I've ranted about the definition of stalking before, I just have no idea in what context.  For all I know this entire blog is a repeat of a blog of history past.

Why do we chastise people for being honest, for sharing their emotions?  We're all guilty of doing this, as we are all guilty of being the one sharing our emotions (or most of us anyway.)  As my friend pointed out, you see it everywhere.  She was at a concert the other night and was singing along freely, enjoying herself.  She looked around her and realized that she was alone, the rest of the crowd stood motionless- Zombies.

There is a stigma toward emotion today, that if you show it you are in some way odd, or too open with your feelings.  What will we become if we continue to bury our feelings deeper within ourselves?  We will become Troy Dyer, from the film Reality Bites- so afraid to show his true emotions that he almost lost the one thing he felt true emotion for.... But even Troy came around in the end, standing emotionally naked and volunerable.

As my friend said, in order to truly feel you must be volunerable.  I've sheltered myself from volunerability for quite some time now, but I think something has broken through that barrier.  Once the wall is torn down, it may be very hard to reconstruct.  The question is, do I want to reconstruct it?  The answer- no.

I want to feel.  I want to live. 

If you love someone, tell them you love them.

If someone has hurt you, tell them they've hurt you.

If someone tells you it's inattractive to wear your emotions on your sleeve, tell them they're a coward.

Dream Cast

Like everyone, on occassion someone from my past will appear in my dream, some more than others.  Maybe an old friend, a current friend, someone I used to crush on, etc...  Standard, right?  But what do you do when you wake up from your dream feeling like a stalker?  There is an acquaintance of mine, someone I liked at one time in my life, but it was a very long time ago.  I do not look at him now as a romantic interest, we have very little in common.  And yet, for the past 10 years or so this person had made appearances in my dreams on a monthly basis, often a few times per month.  It has gone on for so long that I started to just pass it off as the norm.  He rarely plays a big role in the dream,  he is just someone who happens to be present.  I figured he represented a part of my past and left it at that, in order to not feel like a psychopath.  And then I had a dream that included members of his family. People I have seen before, but never really met.  And then I REALLY felt like a pyscho. 

I keep wondering why of all the men I have liked in the past, this is the one who breaks into my dreams so frequently.  We have had very little interaction with one another, especially in the past few months.   The creepiest part of him appearing in my dreams: I kind of like him there.  

Does this make me a creeper? 

Logic

So, I had been seeing a guy for a while and got distracted, but that ended about a month or so ago.  Before I became exclusive with him I had been talking to another gent.  About 3 weeks ago we reconnected and have been spending hours a day on the phone (one day for 4 hours!).  We had a date scheduled  for this past Saturday, but he cancelled for family reasons.  We continued to talk all weekend though.  He told me about his past, which included many run ins with the law as a child, up until the age of 14.  Yesterday I thought to ask him if he had ever been arrested.  Later he told me that I had only asked him that because he was black.  I was dumbfounded!  I will not repeat the kind of trouble he got in as a child here, but given all he had told me this reaction was utterly rediculous!  I asked him "Is it more logical that I asked you that because of everything you told me about your past, or because you are black?"  He went off on "woah is me" rampage about being black and I don't know what it's like.  Don't get me wrong, I know there are racist people everywhere.  And I may not know what it feels like to be judged by color, but I know what it feels like to be judged!!!  I tried to explain all of this to him, but he wouldn't hear it.  I told him he was basically calling me racist, but he said he wasn't.  I explained I had dated other black men and none of them seemed to have such a problem with the world, in regards to their race. It probably has a lot to do with his upbringing, why he sees the world the way he does.  The part that pissed me off was that after he said that to me he ignored me the rest of the night.  We had a phone date, I tried to call, he wouldn't answer.  After thinking about it more I realized even more how rediculous his reaction was.  Asking him if he had ever been arrested after him telling me at least 3 stories about his run ins with the law seemed pretty logical to me. And here I was trying to give the guy a chance, despite his past.  Where was the logic in that?

Mind-reading

Do you ever wish you could know what someone was thinking?  I guess it is a double-edged sort, because we definitely don't want to know what everyone is thinking all of the time.  But there are those times where it would come in quite handy.  I think, though, about others being able to read my thoughts.  Being the most indecisive person in the world, it would definitely not be a good thing.  Especially in the dating world.  Yet, I only say what I mean, and am always upright and honest with a person.  Why can't everyone be like that?  People worry about hurting other people's feelings, but as I've said before and will say again, I would rather someone be honest and hurt me a little, then be dishonest and hurt me a lot.

Hockey Tickets

So this guy texts me today asking me if I can use his Bruins tickets this weekend.  My first thought was "Who the hell is this unknown person texting me?"  My second thought was "Ooohhh hockey game!?"

Come to find out, I was not the person he meant to text, however he did appreciate my interest in hockey.  We got to talking.  Come to find out he lived in Salem, NH and worked in Exeter, NH.  I live in Exeter, so I thought "Wow, what are the odds?"  My coworker said "Oh, serendipity."

Now lately, I've been viewing serendipity has been a load of crap. (Yes, I know I'm bitter.)  However, the second she said it I thought "Wouldn't it be funny if..."  Our texting continued even to the point where we each shared a photo.  He was very attractive. All was going well.  It was a friendly conversation.   I was being 100% platonic and then I get the dreaded text "Wanna see naughty pics."  I didn't even feel he deserved a response.  Luckily, I only got one more text from him after that: "...."

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!  Are there really many girls out there who would have said "Sure."  If  so, do women have any respect left for themselves?  And furthermore, are there really that many men in the world who have no respect for women?! 

Outside of my family, I can only think of a handful of men that I feel are truly respectful. 

Sad.

To anyone following the blog, I'm sorry! The blog should be up again within the next few months.

The Lady Downstairs

Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a very friendly person.  I also like to give people the benefit of the doubt before I label them mental.  This should be a good quality, however it causes me a lot of grief!

An example of this is the woman downstairs...

A woman moved in below me about 2 weeks ago.  60 years old, talkative, breast-cancer survivor.  Upon our first meeting, she asked me if I would like for us to hide keys for one another to check on eachothers another cats if need ever be.  RED FLAG!  I found this odd, and of course did not agree, I just kind of brushed it off.  I figured, however, that I shouldn't just jump to conclusions about her.  She invited me down to her apartment last weekend and  we had pizza delivered.  We talked for a few hours, we swapped stories about our Eurpean travels.  She told me she used to work  in education, that she was on disability now and that her car had broken down.  I told her if she ever needed a ride anywhere to let me know.  She mentioned maybe going to the grociery store together Wedensday night.  I didn't really need to go to the grociery store, but I said sure.  She came over the next night to ask me if we were still on.  I said yes.  She stressed that if I couldn't drive her it was  no big deal, that she could take the bus.  Late that night I remembered that a friend of mine was coming over for a visit the next night (Wed. night).  I had her cell phone #, we had texted on occassion, but it was late and I didn't want to wake her.  She had left notes at my door before, so the next morning I left her a note apologizing.  I even said that I was going to the store on my lunch break and could pick anything up for her if she needed.  She later text me that she got my note and not to worry about it, to have a fun time.  The next morning outside my door there was a note from her...  One of the most rediculous notes I have ever read.  I felt like I was back in highschool!  "I no longer want to be acquainted with you, if you are going to ditch your female friend for a guys company then don't expect to keep any friends..."  This not was double-sided!!

She put off many red flags, but I had kept on ignoring them.  Maybe because I felt bad for her living down there all alone with no one to keep her company.  Maybe I thought I was being judgemental, because most of the people in my building are, shall we say, unkempt.  The lesson learned was that I should have trusted  my gut, my intuition.  Why don't we trust our instincts more?  You hear about it all the time, people who are abused in some way because they didn't want to come off as rude so ended up getting themselves into an unsafe situation. 

Always trust your instincts!!